“One of our definite vulnerabilities is the giraffe feeding deck because I have unknown humans of unknown vaccine status interacting very close with my giraffes.” “We know that tigers can get, lions can get it, gorillas and other species.” deMaar said. In July 2021, the Zoo announced that it intended to vaccinate its animals for COVID, citing concerns over the difficulty of treating certain animals for respiratory viruses. She was also a proud mom who loved to show off her and her sisters’ babies to visitors.” I remember she’d put her ear to the glass, tap and wait for guests to tap back. “Neverthelesswe will study this incident as we work toward continuous improvement for the safety of our visitors and animals,” said Zoo Director Thane Maynard.Walter DuPree, the Curator of Mammals at Gladys Porter Zoo, said, “Martha loved to interact with the public. The boy was released from the hospital on Saturday night.Ĭincinnati Zoo officials said that since the Gorilla World exhibit opened in 1978, this was the first time anyone has managed to bypass the barriers. Steve Saunders, a Cincinnati police spokesman, said there are no plans to charge the parents, in spite of the outrage. #CincinnatiZoo ,” Twitter user Britt Rosenthal quipped, along with a chorus of other outraged users. “Sad thing is it looked like #Harambe was protecting the kid more than the parent was. The boy was rushed to a children’s hospital with non life-threatening injuries and was alert following the incident.Īs mourners brought flowers to a gorilla statue outside of the Cincinnati Zoo on the Sunday following Harambe’s death, there was a strong social media reaction about how the boy managed to get into the exhibit. “Can you imagine what was going through those parents’ minds? No matter what Harambe was doing, in their minds, they had to be petrified.” It’s a tragic set of circumstances that left a beautiful young gorilla in a situation that was foreign and ultimately ended up being dangerous for him,” Stones said. Silverback gorillas, who can live up to 60 years in captivity, tend to be “gentle giants,” Stones said, but that there’s no way of predicting whether the unexpected presence of the boy in his cage would have triggered an aggressive response. “It tore me a new one,” Stones said, after receiving news of the slaying. We are all devastated that this tragic accident resulted in the death of a critically-endangered gorilla,” the Cincinnati zoo said in a statement. “The Zoo security team’s quick response saved the child’s life. Zoo security then swiftly plucked the toddler from between Harambe’s arms. On top of that, the impact from the dart could agitate the animal and cause the situation to get much worse,” zoo officials explained in a Facebook post. “Tranquilizers do not take effect for several minutes and the child was in imminent danger. In a censored portion of the video, Harambe is reported to have dragged the boy through the exhibit’s moat.Īfter a tense several minutes, fast-acting zoo officials made the difficult decision to shoot the gorilla instead of using tranquilizers. Two female gorillas who shared Harambe’s cage withdrew from the child when zoo officials called them, but Harambe ignored orders and hovered over the tot, nudging him with his long limbs and lifting him up at one point, according to video obtained by local Fox affiliate WLWT. The mother’s like ‘No, you’re not, you’re not,'” witness Kim O’Connor said.īut somehow the boy managed to slip through the fence. “The little boy himself had already been talking about wanting to…get in the water. The child had snuck over the barrier after witnesses overheard him telling his mother he wanted to play in the moat of water inside the exhibit. A 4-year-old boy fell into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and was dragged by Harambe the gorilla before the animal was shot dead.
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